After purchasing network devices, each network device must be provisioned with configuration information used to connect the device to the customer's network. Commonly, there are a variety of methods of providing a network device with the necessary and/or required configuration information used to connect the network device to a network. One of the drawbacks to these methods is that the initial connection of the network device to the customer's network involves a non-secure and unprotected network connection. A solution is needed that allows network management systems to establish secure network connections to provision newly connected network devices.